


Five Times the LITs Were Completely Oblivious (and That Time Jenkins Wasn't)

by greyathena



Series: Back-to-Back-verse [2]
Category: The Librarians (TV 2014)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-27
Updated: 2015-02-04
Packaged: 2018-03-09 06:24:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3239609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greyathena/pseuds/greyathena
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Somehow, the Librarian and his Guardian have managed to keep most of their flirting out of eye-and-earshot. Also, the others may be a bit willfully ignorant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Old people.

**Author's Note:**

> This is not the longer piece I promised, but rather, another outtake that wanted to be gotten out of the way.

1)

"I win!" Eve crowed.

"I agree on so many levels," Flynn conceded, "but I'm not sure what in particular . . ."

She gestured after the retreating, and in most cases confused, robed figures. "Evil cult?"

"Ah. Right." He rubbed his chin, smiling shyly. "Well. In that case I _do_ owe you, and it's not really a date unless we have dinner anyway . . ."

Fortuitously, the building Eve had been viciously slammed against an hour earlier was actually a little restaurant with an impressively well curated wine list. They were rushed to the best table in the place, a little corner number near the cozy fireplace. When Eve excused herself to the ladies' room, Flynn found out why. The owner visited their table with a complimentary bottle of red, and bent over to whisper, "Did I see her outside earlier punching a -"

"Yup."

"Then it _is_ real?"

Flynn grinned. "Not anymore."

The guy took a deep breath and said, "I'm gonna bring you the special. On the house."

Feeling himself blushing like a twelve-year-old, Flynn reached over the table along the wall for Eve's hand, and turned even redder when she actually gave it to him. When the food arrived, she leaned over conspiratorially and said, "Change seats with me."

Of all the things he expected a woman to whisper to him over a cafe table while they were holding hands, that - was not it. "Huh?"

Surprisingly, she blushed, too. "I'm left-handed," she said softly, "and you're not."

That didn't - oh.

They switched seats, and he reached back across the table - with his left hand - for her right, and their fingers tangled like teenagers' while they ate.

When they tumbled back through the back door, they almost landed on top of Ezekiel. "Where have you two been?" he asked in a slow drawl without lifting his eyes from the book he was examining.

"Fargo. There was a -" Flynn coughed, decided to cut to the chase. "Eve punched a wendigo."

_That_ was worth Ezekiel's attention. "Awesome!" 

Eve raised her hand for display - somehow, with all the hand-holding, Flynn had failed to notice her cracked knuckles - and Ezekiel gently fist-bumped her. "What about you?" she asked. 

"Do _not_ go to Peru," Ezekiel cautioned. "Not for at least - three months." 

"Ooooookay . . . " 

Flynn interrupted because he was beginning to feel he couldn't wait another moment. "Look, Jones, I'm going to just walk . . . Colonel Baird out to her car . . ." 

The thief barely waved as he went back to his book. 

Flynn stopped awkwardly next to Eve's car, tugging on the hem of his jacket. _It's not the first time,_ he pep-talked himself. _For that matter, it was_ her _the first time._ "Hey, so . . ." 

"It was nice," Eve said. "The evil cult and everything. Working with you." 

"Yeah. Yeah, sure, it was -" 

"Dinner was nice, too." 

In the end, she kissed him (again), and he appreciated that she didn't have to telegraph the move by reaching up. This kiss went on far longer than any of their earlier ones, and he appreciated that, too. His hand even managed to slip under the hem of her sweater and make sure her back wasn't _too_ badly bruised. 

Meanwhile in the Annex, Ezekiel shook his head. _Old people. Woman can punch a wendigo but she can't be trusted to get herself to her car._


	2. Workaholics.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Why else would they still be together?

2)

 

Ordinarily of course she wouldn't have answered her phone, but its ring somehow sounded insistent and she changed her mind once she had looked at the number displayed. "It's Stone," she said apologetically, holding up the phone so that Flynn could see it.

He smiled (in that surprisingly disarming way that made his eyes crinkle) and said, "No, no - Guardian stuff, I get it."

"Guardian stuff?" She was shaking her head as she pressed the "answer" button. "Stone?"

"You ever heard anything about Bogatyr's arrow?" he asked without prelude.

"Bogatyr's - how are we spelling that?"

"You can write Cyrillic?"

"Well, no," she started to answer, but Flynn was wide-eyed and waving across the table for her attention. "Hang on, Flynn's having a seizure. I'm Face Timing."

She propped the phone up on the table and Flynn slid his chair closer to her just as Stone's face appeared on the screen. "Okay, somehow I have a feeling Flynn's about to weigh in here."

"Bogatyr's arrow, as in the bogatyr's arm that was turned _into_ an arrow and thrown into the Black Sea?" In his excitement and his attempt to stay onscreen he nearly toppled sideways out of his chair, catching himself with a hand on Eve's leg. He left it there.

"I think so," Stone was saying. "This area's not really my forte, but I guess the folks around here think all the sudden tidal waves and stuff are connected to this thing they're describing as a rusty old looking arrow -"

"Wait, wait - 'around here'?" In her eagerness to adjust the phone's screen to face her square on she nearly elbowed Flynn in the face. "Where are you?"

"I'm in the Crimea, came over by -"

"You're _in the Crimea_?" Even she had to admit her voice had gone shrill - mainly because it actually hurt her throat. "Are you _insane_? Are - are you - I've _seen_ what happens to you when you hang out in Ukraine!"

"That didn't really happen though, right?" He lowered his head and looked up at her with raised eyebrows of great import. " _None_ of that really happened, that's what you said."

She was extremely glad Flynn couldn't see the screen very well at that moment, although she could have sworn the hand on her leg suddenly felt a bit . . . possessive. "It didn't, but - we don't know how that loom of fate stuff works, it's all - weavy."

"It's going to be fine, I just - look, okay, as long as this really is a thing, this arrow, then I'm fine. It's all good. No, you know, mercenaries around or anything."

Eve sighed deeply. "Jones and Cassandra both came home yesterday. You want backup?" Not that she really wanted to send _them_ to the Crimea either, but they did tend to keep each other alive.

"I'm really fine." Stone suddenly squinted at her through the phone. "What time is it there, anyway? Eight?"

"Something like that?"

He shook his head. "You guys have got to give this workaholic thing a rest. I thought I was gonna catch you at home or something."

"We're not at work. We're at an actual restaurant." She picked up the phone, turned it away from herself, and swept it slowly back and forth as proof. "See?"

"Just because you're not _at_ work doesn't mean you're not working. Seriously, you guys - take some time off. Please. One of you is gonna have a meltdown and I really don't want that to happen while Dulaque is trying to kill us all or - the staff of Moses is exploding with snakes, or whatever else -"

"We -" Eve stopped, thought, and gave up. "Okay. We'll . . ." She grinned at Flynn, who could no longer see the screen. "We will definitely not work anymore tonight. Maybe I'll even think about getting a social life or something."

"That's all I want."

"Be safe," she told him sternly. She clicked out of the call and turned to Flynn, who had just lifted his hand from her leg to the back of her neck. "He's going to be very easy to please, that one."


	3. The Librarian works alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nothing worse than incomplete eavesdropping.

3)

The Hope Diamond was missing again. This was either not a problem, or an enormous problem of epic proportions. Probably 50-50.

"Hey, is it possible that the Library is moving books around?"

Flynn pondered. "No? Yes. While you're watching?" He shifted his cross-legged position on the floor so that he could watch Eve pace in front of the shelf.

"Not - I'm not _seeing_ them move, I just swear there were completely different ones on this shelf a minute ago."

"Okay - do you see a big green one with -" Smiling, he checked himself. " _Don't touch_ the big green one with a red apple on the side."

"What do you know, he does learn," she muttered to herself.

"Hey."

"I actually do see that one - what would happen if I touched it?"

"Things would get kind of . . . Biblical. Weirdly Biblical." _Really_ weirdly, for a woman named Eve. For a second he wondered if that would have any impact on the magical effects, but decided it was definitely not worth trying.

"So why is it with the cursed diamond stuff? Or - why is it where the cursed diamond stuff was five minutes ago, but isn't anymore?"

"That is probably a really good question." He closed the book in his lap and dragged himself off the floor.

"Hey," Eve asked, a flash of curiosity replacing the frustration, "would it be different if you touched it? I mean, if a man touched it?"

He knew it was bad, but couldn't stop himself. "If I had a nickel . . ."

Her eye-roll was immensely rewarding.

There was no one around, and he had spent the last half hour alternately reading and trying not to stare at the oddly alluring way her shirts layered over her hips. He slid a hand over her stomach and let it rest there, palm flat, enjoying the way she subtly shifted so that she was standing in the curve of his arm. "The last man that touched that book," he said, "suffered a psychotic break before running off to the nearest zoo and releasing all the snakes." She winced, and he added, "Very messy cleanup."

"Okay, let's definitely not do that." She seemed undistracted as her eyes roamed the shelves, but she also leaned back against his chest. "So? Any actual connection to the Hope Diamond? Or is the Library telling us not to worry about that right now?"

"If there is a connection, it's not based on the Hope Diamond itself. There definitely is no connection between that specific stone and the Serpent Codex."

"Is that what -" She gestured, carefully not touching the book on the spine of which the red apple somehow seemed _gleamier_ than it had been before.

"Yup."

"So there was really a serpent?"

"No, actually. The serpent is a metaphor. Well. Right up until somebody touches the thing and then the metaphor has a way of becoming . . . incorporate."

"Hmm." There was a long enough silence between them as they both stared into the rows of books (which were, as she had said, definitely not moving, and yet also were not the books he expected to find on that shelf . . .) that he began to think of taking a momentary break to enjoy their unusual privacy. He bent his head toward Eve's, but she suddenly pulled away and stepped just out of his reach.

"Hang on," she said. "What _else_ does that book do?"

"What - what do you mean?"

"I mean - does being near it make people . . ." She gestured between them with a flapping hand.

"What? Oh - no! Sorry. That's all me." He took a hesitant step toward her. "Sorry, I was just . . ."

"No, it's fine." She took his outstretched hand apologetically. "Just - as long as it's not because of some magical - I mean, you haven't, in the Library . . ." Her face was slowly going fiery red.

"Uh, no. I guess not? Childhood hangup?" Eve laughed, but he added, "I guess it's still weird, you know, not just being alone in here with . . . everything. Seems like - I don't know, like the Library's paying attention?"

Eve took a step back again. "Thanks for that image."

"Sorry. I didn't exactly mean - uh, yeah. Sorry."

After an exchange of slightly embarrassed grins, Eve turned back to the shelf and closed her eyes. "Library?"

"What are you doing?" Flynn hissed, arms ready to intercept if she tried reaching for the green book.

She waved him away without opening her eyes. "Could we have the cursed diamond books back, please? Or maybe some kind of less subtle hint?"

He didn't see anything happen, but sometime in the moment that he took his eyes off the shelf to look at her, something shifted. When he looked back, there was a whole row of books with titles like _Adamantes et Malum Illorum Maledictiones_. "Hey!"

Eve opened her eyes and smiled broadly. "Oh ye of little faith. Thank you!"

"For what?"

"Not you." She pointed upward.

"Ah."

". . . these are in Latin, aren't they?"

"Yes they are."

Eve sighed. He chose that moment to approach again, turning her to face him and giving her a quick but gentle kiss. "Sorry," he added, "but I'm guessing I'll be doing most of this part on my own."

"Fine," she replied, her exaggerated shrug revealing she didn't actually mind that much. "I'll check on Jones and Cassandra. If I can help -"

"I will let you know. Hey." She had started to turn away, and he pulled her back. "We'll talk more about - you know, me getting you out of the Library later."

The only change to her expression was a slight flush. "Sounds like an important conversation."

As she headed back to the connector with the Annex and Flynn settled back onto the floor with a copy of Sulpicius's _Lapidibus_ , they both missed Cassandra herself, who had just been passing along the shelves on the other side. She frowned angrily to herself as she watched Eve's - somewhat unsteady? - progress out of the stacks. Their Guardian obviously seemed upset, and Cassandra made a mental note to have a talk with the other LITs about Flynn. _I know he didn't want a Guardian, but after all we've been through he's still treating her like that? Ass._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By the way, Leverage fans definitely know why the Hope Diamond is missing again.


	4. The caretaker.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jenkins knows the right moment when he sees it.

4)

Jenkins was oddly fidgety.

Flynn took the box the caretaker was holding out to him, wooden, old, sides darkened by years of handling and feeling oddly warm in his hands. "This came from the main Library?"

"No, strictly speaking -" Jenkins coughed. "Strictly speaking, it doesn't belong to the Library. I mean, it's not part of the collection. It's - I picked it up . . . somewhere, along the line."

"It's yours?" Flynn felt his eyes widen with interest.

"No . . ." There was a long pause, while both men looked at the lid of the box in Flynn's hands. "It isn't meant for me, it's - well, you'll see."

Looking into the older ( _much_ older, as they now knew) man's eyes first to be sure it was all right, Flynn slowly, gently opened the box.

The lining of the box was red velvet, faded, brittle, worn smooth on the top of the cushion where a silver amulet rested. "Box is old," Flynn murmured.

"Not as old as the amulet," Jenkins replied. "It's only been in this box since 1663. Before that, a similar box but with a representation of the Archangel Michael on the lid. Before _that_ , Harun al-Rashid kept it in a box entirely made of gold."

Flynn reached toward the amulet with the hand not holding the box, but stopped himself before actually touching it. His finger hovered bluntly over the design as he pointed. "That's Celtic, but post-Roman. Made in - is it Cornwall? Guernsey?"

"I've always believed it to be Brittany, actually, though possibly not made by a native." Jenkins indicated the amulet with a jut of his chin. "What else?"

"It's - is it a lion? Lions in Cornwall?"

"I'm pretty sure the lion is a metaphor. What else."

The tip of Flynn's finger indicated a straight line under the lion. "That's inset. It's - it's not bronze or copper, it's . . . wood? A splinter of wood?"

Jenkins only inclined his head.

"It's - you're going to make me guess?"

Jenkins waved his hand, seeming to indicate that Flynn should -

Cautiously, most cautiously, Flynn used the tip of one finger to flip the amulet over. Letters, carved into the silver but cleverly limned in gold, read "awearde". Flynn's lips unconsciously mouthed the possibilities as he thought. "W- w- no- g- guard?" He looked up at Jenkins, surer now. "I guard. I guard what?"

Jenkins shrugged.

"Guard. It's - protection, it's - no!" In triumph Flynn pointed his free hand at Jenkins. "No, this was made for - by - by and for - the person who _guarded_ something else. Someone else? No. Something. Something you? - found?" 

Jenkins's face did not change.

Flynn was undeterred. Realization was flooding him. "Something you found, but - something you never would have hacked pieces off of-"

Jenkins pointed carefully at the amulet. "I did not make that."

"No. You found it. You found it with - the object. With the . . ." His eyebrows raised almost painfully as he silently begged Jenkins for confirmation.

"With," Jenkins said, "the person who came before me. The person who had been entrusted with it."

Flynn's heart was pounding. "And he gave it to you? Or - she?"

"He was dead."

Pressing his hand over his racing heart, Flynn gently jostled the box in the right direction to get the amulet to flip over again. The lion, and the splinter over which it presided, looked back up at him. "So why isn't it meant for you?"

Jenkins's voice was silken suddenly, barely intruding on Flynn's thoughts. "At first I just - knew. Knew it was wrong, not for me. After a while, well, there was the Library, and the Librarian, and the Librarians after, and . . . then I knew. I saw."

"You saw?"

" _Áwearde_ ," Jenkins said with a native lilt that echoed over centuries.

Flynn automatically repeated. "I guard."

"It belongs," Jenkins said, "to a Guardian."

Flynn repeated the word silently.

"Not, maybe, not the exact same type of Guardian, but the same idea. The same world, full of - things mortal man can't handle." 

"And you haven't -" Flynn frowned, looked up from the amulet to make eye contact. "You haven't given it to anyone before this?"

"Here?" With one exaggerated shrug the centuries fell away and Jenkins was just Jenkins. "Who comes here, until now?"

"So." Flynn tried to hand the box back to Jenkins, but the older man pushed away.

"No, no. You're the Librarian - you should give it to her. That's the way - that's what's right."

"Why now? Why -"

He could hear Jenkins's inhale, deep and controlled. "Because. It should feel meaningful. It should feel earned, and - well. _Et tuam ipsius animam pertransiet gladius_ . . ."

Well _that_ sure did happen.

"Also," Jenkins said, "check the calendar."

Flynn frowned, gently set the box on the table, pulled out his phone, and said, "Son of a -"

"Particularly inappropriate language, but the sentiment is pretty much dead on."

Later, Jenkins watched-didn't-watch from around a shelf as Flynn presented Eve with the box. He couldn't hear their conversation, but he spied long enough to see her initial hesitance overcome, to see Flynn carefully lift the amulet from its resting place, put the ancient chain over her head, and settle the amulet on her chest. Acting on apparent instinct, she raised it to her lips and then tucked it under her shirt. Her lips formed words he couldn't hear, but he read the sentiment in her gesture as her hand lifted, long fingers lightly brushing the Librarian's face. Her own face reflected awe and reverence, just as he had known it would.

Jenkins left before the kissing started. After all, he still had red roses to leave on both Eve's and Cassandra's desks. Call him a romantic.

Even later, Flynn came to see him, face slightly red. 

"Did she understand?" Jenkins asked casually.

Flynn shrugged. "She's Catholic."

Still later, Eve slid around a corner of the stacks and said, "You gave it to him, didn't you."

When Jenkins raised his eyes to her, she, unlike Flynn, did not look shy. She looked - taller. _Even_ taller. "How does it feel?" he asked, with a curiosity born of centuries.

"Warm." Her brow furrowed, and for a second her confidence slid a bit sideways. "Is that right?"

"I think only you would know."

Her hand covered her chest, where he knew the amulet lay unseen. "Even after everything I've seen . . ."

He let himself almost smile at her, the unexpected Guardian whose heartsblood had opened the Library, and gently tapped the hand on her chest with his own. "Go with God, Guardian."


	5. Some suspicions just won't die.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flynn is definitely stressing Eve out. They can tell.

5)

"I'm telling you," Cassandra hissed. "She's not okay."

"She looks completely fine to me."

"Something is bothering her. She's checked her phone 19.6 times in the last hour and a half."

Ezekiel frowned in the act of picking the catch on a seventeenth-century tomb. "How do you check your phone point-six of a time?"

"She clicked and swiped but didn't enter her password!"

He rolled his eyes and shook his head, returning to his jimmying of the catch.

"I'm telling you - she's upset about something and it's one of two things. Either it's Flynn -"

"I think it looks like they're getting along, aren't they? I swear they were almost flirting last week."

"Sure, in front of us!" Cassandra moved so that her body was blocking his view of the tomb entrance. "I overheard him talking to her when no one was around, and he was being so - dismissive. I'm _sure_ she was upset, I could see. He still doesn't even want a Guardian, even after - I mean, she got stabbed through the heart for the Library, and he still -"

"Okay - move." He shunted her aside, not ungently. "Also, Baird can handle herself."

"She's -" Cassandra abruptly shut up. Baird was returning, her face streaked with dirt.

"What happened?" Ezekiel asked. Just then, the catch finally gave. "Gotcha!"

"Dead Marquis Etienne was less dead than I had been led to believe," Baird said. She threw the shovel she was carrying to the ground.

"He's - just, like, roaming around?" Cassandra's eyes were wide, her concern for Baird temporarily forgotten.

"I said he _was_ less dead." Baird dropped to her haunches on the ground, wiping at her forehead with the back of one arm. "Still, let's hurry it up. He might not have been alone and I've hit my zombie quota for the night."

"All clear," Ezekiel said.

"Okay." Tiredly Baird pushed herself back onto her feet. "Let me check it out before you come in."

When she had disappeared into the mouth of the tomb, Ezekiel whispered to Cassandra, "What was the other thing?"

"What?"

"You said there were one of two things wrong with Baird."

"Well." Cassandra made a doubtful face. "I was wondering, do you think it's - you know, Jake?"

"Stone?" Ezekiel laughed. " _No_. He's nice to her - he _likes_ her."

"That's what I mean!" Cassandra raised her eyebrows meaningfully.

Ezekiel snorted. "No."

"But -"

"No." He had started fiddling with his lock-picking kit. "Anyway, I kind of thought the two of you . . ."

"Wh-what?" Cassandra blinked. "No, that was just the fairy tale thing, it totally wore off! She's, like, the straightest ever, if you leave out the shoes and the punching."

Now it was Ezekiel's turn to blink in surprise. "I meant - you and Stone."

"Oh." She looked down, actually kicking one shoe against the other like a kid in a cartoon. "I don't - he doesn't even like me."

" _Sure._ What makes you think there's something between him and Baird?"

"There was that time -"

Ezekiel grinned. "You mean when the three of us were all leaving for Norway?"

"And she was giving us all those last-minute instructions, and -"

"And Stone accidentally kissed her goodbye on the way out like she was the little woman handing him his briefcase at the door?" He laughed. "They both looked like they'd rather kill themselves than ever admit that happened."

"They were just embarrassed -"

"Shh!"

Baird emerged from the tomb and waved them on, just as her phone buzzed loudly from her shirt pocket. "Go ahead, it's clean. Well, _clean_ might not be the right word . . ." She pulled out her phone and checked the display. "It's Flynn, I have to talk to him. You guys go on in and look for the sword."

Ezekiel went first, Cassandra pressing against his back with her hand. "See?" she hissed. "She's totally stressed out."

They both turned and took a quick look back. Baird had turned her back to them, phone tucked against her ear, and her posture was indeed tense as she listened to whatever Flynn was saying.

"Flynn is awesome," Cassandra whispered, "but also I kind of want to kill him dead."

They had vanished into the tomb by the time Eve turned around again, just at the end of Flynn's story about being surrounded by goons who worked for an Estonian crime syndicate. "You're sure you're fine?" she asked, one hand clenched in the hem of her shirt. "We're almost done here, I can get Stone and be there in a couple hours . . ."

"I promise it's fine. They're off on a wild goose chase to Uzbekistan and I'll be back tomorrow night."

"Swear?"

"I swear."

Her hand went to the amulet hidden under her shirt. "I miss you," she said softly.

"I miss you, too."

She clicked off and slid the phone back into her pocket. She was about to follow Cassandra and Ezekiel into the tomb when she saw, off in the shadows, a figure apparently . . . climbing from an open sarcophagus. "Oh, come _on_."


	6. Natural outcomes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eve does what she does best.

6)

The thing about unresolved sexual tension was it was really only fun for so long. After that it just became stressful.

Eve had worked out fairly early - right around the time she kissed him, and he stammeringly promised to text her while he was out saving the world - that Flynn Carsen was no Indiana Jones or James Bond. If he _had_ actually slept with a woman in half the countries in the world (which she had assumed at first, but now very much doubted) she now realized those must have been extremely aggressive women.

Or maybe not. He was highly suggestible, just not especially proactive.

So it was that after twenty-five years, give or take, of constant annoyance at men trying to get her into bed, she was now incredibly annoyed at this one's failure to do the same thing. It was just - hanging out there now. It was obviously going to happen at some point, but until it did the tension was driving her to drink.

Her chief strategic obstacle was the goodnight kiss routine, where he would walk her to her car, kiss her fairly senseless, and then leave. Usually to return to the Library. There was only one surefire way to overcome this particular obstacle: her best bet was going to be the home-cooked meal. At her home. 

She was pretty sure he wouldn't be leaving once she got him there.

(Plan B was to calmly ask him if he would like to get into the car, and come home with her for sex.)

(Plan C was just telling him to get in and shut up about it. She really hoped she would not need either Plan B or C.)

Fortunately, although it didn't come up often, she actually could cook. Well enough. Though her last romantic cooking attempt had pretty much predated Google, so she made ample use of it this time around. After losing ten minutes to horrified tracking of something called "engagement chicken" across a series of highly gender exploitative marriage-porn websites, she managed to calm down and settle on something that would set the appropriate mood without being ridiculously unsubtle.

(Oysters? _Really? Chocolate-covered strawberries?_ It was a date, not freakin' _Pretty Woman_.)

When she suggested dinner at her place (or, if she was honest, told him they'd be having dinner at her place), he'd agreed instantly. But then after a moment there had been a flash on his face - not doubt or regret, certainly, but as if he'd just realized what the point of them being at her place was. Good.

Dinner went entirely as planned. They had all along been good at having dinner, flirty, pleasant dinner, ever since Fargo and the cult of marijuana-worshippers who had accidentally summoned a wendigo. But then _of course_ his mama had raised him right and he couldn't do anything, even have the sex that was _clearly_ going to be on offer, without washing her dishes first.

With a moderate amount of eye-rolling, she joined him next to the sink with a dishtowel over her shoulder. As soon as the last item was set in the drying rack, however, she flipped the towel onto the counter with finality and slid her arms around his waist.

The way he kissed her, the way he murmured, " _Eve_ ," against her neck, all suggested that this was also going to go entirely as planned. Indeed it was tempting to just relax and allow them both to do what came naturally. But if this didn't happen, now, she was going to shoot something. So just to be sure, at an appropriate interval she parted from him, kissed the underside of his jaw, and whispered, "Stay tonight?"

He got it. Just to be absolutely sure, she led him by the hand to her bedroom.

Unlike their first, urgent, stolen kisses, their courtship to this point had been sweet and slow, and this was no different. When it came to the pace of their relationship, the slowness had been at first very nice and eventually very frustrating. In bed it was pretty much just nice, all the way through.

Okay - so there was one frustrating moment when she pulled the amulet over her head and placed it neatly on her bedside table, and he got distracted by wondering if its properties were in any way affected by . . . what they were about to do. She solved this problem efficiently by taking off her shirt, after which point he remained on task.

Once he had fallen asleep, cradling her arm across his chest, she sent up a silent prayer of thanks for a well-executed plan.

Her phone rang at 6 am. Cursing herself for not leaving it in the living room, she stretched over Flynn's prone body to retrieve it. Stone.

"Hey," she said groggily, rubbing her eyes.

"Baird? You okay?"

"Yeah, just - it's early."

"Sorry, but I just got back and I think this thing is bigger than any of us realized. I called Jones and Cassandra too. Can you meet us?"

She sighed. "Sure. I'll be there - I'll be there as soon as I can."

"Not at the Annex though - like I said I just got back, and I'm starving, and there's no food in my house. At that diner up the road."

"Okay." Still attempting to completely wake up, she scrubbed a hand over her face. "Flynn too?"

The warm body next to her stirred, and Flynn said, "Who is -"

She elbowed him into silence.

There was a pause before Stone answered. "Uh. Yeah - yeah, I was gonna call him, too. I think it's all hands on deck."

"I'll call him. See you in half an hour." She clicked off and rolled to face Flynn, who reflexively wrapped his arms around her and kissed the top of her head. "Sorry," she said. "We're meeting the team. Something went wonky with Stone's thing in Indiana."

_This_ was the advantage to dating a colleague. Anyone else would have been annoyed by a postcoital 6 am meeting, but Flynn was reaching for his pants almost as eagerly as he'd taken them off.

Meanwhile, Stone put his phone away and calculated whether it was time for another cup of coffee. Baird clearly had company (which - get it, girl, he was nothing but proud of her), so, twenty minutes to get rid of the guy -

No, it was Baird. Five. Still, factor in losing him, plus getting dressed and finding Flynn - not less than forty-five minutes. He signaled the waitress.

He was surprised but not shocked when she actually managed to show up in _less_ than half an hour, and had even brought Flynn with her. Her grin was entirely too wide for 6:30 in the morning, but he had to grant her that one.

As she slid into the booth next to him, he gave her an approving punch on the arm.

"Why are you smirking at me?"

He grinned back. "I'm not smirking."

"You look like you're about to be sick, stop it."

The three of them all had plates of food by the time the other two showed up. "Hash browns any good?" Jones asked as he and Cassandra slid into the other side of the booth.

"Don't know," Stone replied before Baird, who actually had them on her plate, could. He reached for one of hers and she smacked his hand and said, "Use a fork."

He noticed Jones and Cassandra staring, possibly because they thought he might be risking death by filching from Baird's plate. Jones just looked intrigued; Cassie looked both a little bit smug and a little bit . . . sad?

He had no time for that. He bumped his shoulder against Baird's in thanks and said, "So, here is what I absolutely did _not_ think would happen when I went to the Indiana State Fairgrounds."


	7. But here's what really happened.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seriously?

7)

Indiana ended with, simultaneously, an exploding Ferris wheel and a brawl. Fortunately for the Librarians and their Guardian, the former took care of at least six of their opponents in the latter. This left the two Flynn was somehow fencing with a piece of broken gear shift, the two Cassandra and Ezekiel had tripped and were kneeling on top of (inelegant, but Eve couldn't fault their results), and the five that she and Stone had attracted between them. Another five minutes, several whacks to the head with the gear shift and - yeah, Stone had just hit two guys with Cassandra's boot; awesome - and their opponents were down. Unfortunately, one of them got a pretty good piece of Eve in the process.

Stone was the first to notice her doubled over in the aftermath of their victory, and he was instantly at her side, hand rubbing nervously over her back. "Eve? You okay? What was it - are you -"

She tried to catch Flynn's eye to reassure him, but couldn't straighten up yet. Stone, unfortunately, wasn't tuned in to the difficulty and he yanked her sharply upright by the shoulders, ignoring her gasped yelp. Her attempt to tell him it had only been a strong punch to the stomach ended in a bout of coughing.

Meanwhile, Stone was yanking up her shirt and running his hands over her abdomen. Still gasping, she managed to swat his hands away and finally choke out, " _Get off_ , I got punched. It's -" _cough_ "fine."

Flynn tossed the gear shift to the ground and came to her other side, hand lightly brushing hers and fingers clasping for half a moment. "Sure you're okay?" he asked quietly.

" _Fine_." She coughed painfully one more time, hands clutched to her ribs. "Everybody else good?"

"We're good," Cassandra said, looking scared and wide-eyed. "Are you -"

Eve waved a hand at the prostrate bodies, some wriggling, on the ground. "Be up soon. Time to -" Breath gone again, she waved toward the shed door that actually led to the Annex.

Ezekiel frowned. "Time to . . ."

"Go!" Stone yanked both Ezekiel and Cassandra to their feet and shoved them toward the door, then, despite her attempts to protest, took one of Eve's arms. Flynn took the other, and they dragged her through into the Annex.

"Did you find it - oh look, Colonel Baird is injured. I'm shocked."

Eve's glare felt much stronger now that she could almost breathe.

Jenkins's skepticism aside, however, between the five of them they had managed to retrieve the object that had been causing multiple tornadoes a day from Terre Haute to Muncie and which, rather surprisingly, had turned out to be a . . . metronome.

"I can't even begin to guess the connection," Cassandra said.

"Me . . . either." Jenkins thoughtfully took the metronome from Ezekiel's hands, cradled across a layer of handkerchiefs. "I look forward to solving the mystery."

"Okay, but first." Stone clapped both Eve and Flynn hard on the back, though he did look repentant when Eve winced. "This is the first time all of us have worked together since the Library's been back. Time for a drink."

Ezekiel brightened. "There's - something that looks like incredibly old scotch on the shelf near the -"

"Don't drink that!" Eve, Flynn, and Jenkins all shouted at more or less the same time. "Don't even touch it," Eve added with her sternest glare.

"Why?" Ezekiel asked. "What would happen?"

Flynn almost told the truth, but Eve hushed him with a hand on his wrist. "I won't say in front of a lady," she said, letting her eyes drift toward Cassandra, "but something . . . shrivels."

"Never mind!"

"No, we are going out - actually outside this building." Stone pointed. "Jenkins too."

"I do have -"

"Enough free will to decide to come out with us?" Stone was beaming, already victorious.

By virtue of the bruise rapidly forming on her stomach, Eve got to hold their booth while everyone else braved the crowd at the bar. Flynn got to stay with her, by virtue of calling it first, basically.

While Jenkins studied the cocktail list with a seriousness usually dedicated to half-disassembled magical artifacts, Cassandra seized her first opportunity to get the other two alone.

"She's been on this for days," Ezekiel groaned. "I'm telling you, Baird is _fine_. I mean, at the moment she can barely stand up, but otherwise - fine."

"I gotta agree." Stone shook his head. "I appreciate you're concerned, but I don't think there's anything to worry about. She's even . . ." For a moment he fumbled for the words that wouldn't sound sort of - judgy. "She's seeing someone."

"She's -" Cassandra was suddenly trying very hard to appear casual, for some reason. Maybe Ezekiel was actually right about her crush on Baird? She cleared her throat theatrically. "Do you know who?"

In the time they'd been waiting at the bar, a girl down the end had already sent Stone a shot, and he had downed it, which was possibly the reason he just went ahead and said, "No. Are you being weird about this?"

"W-weird?"

Ezekiel was clearly struggling to follow the thread. "So - sorry, Flynn _is_ being horrible, but she doesn't care? I'm still not clear on - whether _I_ care? Or-"

"Jesus Christ!" Stone blurted, then immediately burst out laughing. The other two stared at him as he cackled helplessly. "Sorry, I just - God, I wish they had got me my drink already so I could have spit it out."

Cassandra and Ezekiel exchanged quick glances. "Are you . . ." she asked . . .

"Damaged in the head?" he finished.

Stone grinned at them. "No, man, just - this is priceless. I admit to feeling a little slow, but -" He allowed himself one more cackle. "Not as slow as you two."

"What -"

Stone twirled a finger in the air, just as the bartender finally started setting their drinks on the bar.

" _What_?"

He repeated the gesture, while reaching for his bourbon with his other hand, and said, "Turn around."

Frowning, they both turned, looked, and immediately turned back again. Cassandra was satisfyingly beet red, while Ezekiel was squeezing his eyes so tightly shut that it looked sort of painful. "Oh good lord," he said, gripping the edge of the bar. "Why do I find that so disturbing?"

Honestly, you'd think they'd seen something a _lot_ more scandalous than Baird and Flynn holding hands at their table. As Stone watched over his colleagues' stunned shoulders, Flynn leaned over and kissed Baird's temple. It wasn't exactly porn.

Still grinning, Stone poked Ezekiel in the shin with the toe of his boot. "Come on, I thought kids were supposed to be happy when Mom and Dad are in love."

"Oh God, ew."

Cassandra meanwhile had managed, by dint of a lot of hand-flapping, to find words. "You knew about this the whole time and didn't say anything?"

"Okay, (a), I'm not telling you two her business, and (b), I did not know. I mean I knew he obviously had a thing for her -"

He was interrupted by a duet of " _Obviously?_ "

"Obviously."

"But," Cassandra insisted, "I _heard_ him, he was being so - he said he wanted to get her out of the Library!"

For a long moment, the other two just stared back at her. Then Ezekiel said again, "Ew," and Stone kept staring meaningfully until Cassandra turned even redder and clapped her hand over her mouth.

Stone laughed and scooped Eve's Irish neat into his free hand. "Come on, make yourselves useful."

"What's wrong with the two of them?"

Jenkins was standing between them and their table, clutching a large drink with a small umbrella in it. Stone gestured.

The caretaker turned, looked, and turned back. "Am I missing something?"

"You didn't see . . ." Ezekiel stammered.

"Wait, you mean -" Jenkins waved a lazy hand toward Baird and Flynn. " _Seriously?_ I thought you people were supposed to be geniuses." Languidly he turned and wove his way to the table.

Stone, delighted, just laughed.


End file.
